Isotope Officially Debuts the Long Awaited OVNI Jumping Hour
If you’ve attended the Windup Watch Fair, British Watchmakers’ Day, or any other watch event in the last few years where Isotope and brand founder Jose Miranda have been in attendance, chances are you got an early look at the OVNI, their long in the works watch with a jumping hour complication. Like the Moonshot before it, the OVNI Jumping Hour represents Isotope at their most ambitious, creating a watch with a design that seems to be dropped from another world entirely, and with a unique interpretation of a classic complication. Lots of enthusiasts have been waiting for the OVNI to land, and its general release is a big milestone for the brand, which happens to coincide with Isotope’s tenth anniversary.
Like other watches in Isotope’s collection, the OVNI borrows heavily from science fiction in its design language, most notably with the saucer shaped case, which the brand proudly admits was inspired by UFOs (the name of the watch, OVNI, comes from the Iberian/French abbreviation for “UFO”). It’s crafted from 904L steel and measures 40mm across and 13.6mm tall. Virtually every surface is either brushed (the body of the case) or sandblasted (the crown) for a look that is unmistakably industrial. The crown at 12:00 is mirrored by an Isotope badge on the 6:00 side of the case (wisely, there’s no branding on the dial).
The sci-fi vibes are perhaps even stronger on the dial, which is where Isotope reinterprets the jumping hour concept in their own way. It’s actually a bit of misnomer to say that the hours jump – it’s actually a rotating dial with a single aperture that lends to the appearance of jumping from one hour to another. Minutes are read via a lumed hand mounted at the large, circular, interior section of the dial. At the top of each hour, the rotating disc snaps to the next position, revealing the next hour in the aperture.
This strikes me as a more dynamic, and perhaps intuitive, way to build a jump hour, as there’s more in motion here than on a typical jump hour, where the current hour is read through a single, static window or aperture. We also still get to read the current hour from the location on the dial where you’d expect to see it. This seems rather straightforward when you break it down, but I imagine the watch was quite complex to create from the ground up. The crystal, for example, which is a doughnut shape covering the rotating hours disc, is not an off the shelf component. The watch runs on a La Joux-Perret G101 automatic caliber with 68 hours of power reserve, which of course is mated to a module and a unique jumping hour disc, also a bespoke component.
Isotope had originally conceived of the OVNI being a 150 piece limited edition, but after feedback from the community the brand has decided to open ordering through a timed window system so that anyone interested can purchase one within a defined period of time. Pre-orders for what Isotope has dubbed the Founders Edition of the OVNI opened yesterday, and close on September 13. Every watch ordered during this window will be individually numbered, with delivery expected in February/March of next year. The retail price is £1,500, which is a little over $2,000 at the moment. Isotope has indicated that future production runs of the OVNI will be priced at £2,400.
We hope to have the opportunity for a hands-on review of the OVNI soon. Until then, more information can be found at the Isotope website here.
The post Isotope Officially Debuts the Long Awaited OVNI Jumping Hour appeared first on Worn & Wound.
from Worn & Wound https://ift.tt/Mxej2t0
Comments
Post a Comment